One of the hazards in fishing is that the fish hook may become snagged by underwater debris. Any attempt to unsnag the hook by pulling on the attached line will merely increase the entanglement and, if the pull is too strong, the line will break and the hook and its attached fishing gear will be lost. In the art, a number of attempts have been made to provide devices for untangling snagged hooks. These devices have usually been of the "knocker" type in which a weight is attached to the snagged line which is pulled down by the force of the gravity and which is "knocked" against the snagged hook in order to free it. However, since such devices are operated by gravity, they are not useful where the snagged line is at a very shallow angle. The present device provides for unsnagging of such lines regardless of the angle at which the line is snagged.